A routine family shopping trip has left one Illinois mother questioning how an alleged food safety incident was handled after she says she found what appeared to be a razor blade in her two-year-old daughter’s leftover meal at an IKEA store.
TikTok creator Alyssa says the incident happened during a visit to the IKEA location in Bolingbrook, Illinois. Her daughter was not injured, but Alyssa argues the experience has been made worse by what she describes as a lack of meaningful follow-up from the company after the family reported it.
“I was not going to make this video,” Alyssa begins, explaining that she had initially hoped the matter would be addressed privately. Instead, she says, “an event occurred at the Ikea in Bolingbrook on Sunday that could have harmed my two-year-old daughter extremely badly, if not worse.”
What happened during the IKEA visit
According to Alyssa, she, her boyfriend and their daughter stopped at IKEA’s in-store restaurant during their shopping trip. The adults ordered meatball plates while their daughter had the children’s chicken tender meal. When the toddler didn’t finish eating, the family transferred the remaining food into a cardboard takeout container.
Expecting the rest of the visit to go like any other, the family simply carried the leftovers as they continued shopping. She says nothing about the outing seemed out of the ordinary until her daughter called out a short time later.
Roughly 20 minutes later, her daughter urgently called out while eating one of the leftover fries. “My boyfriend looks at her first and immediately gasps,” she recalls, adding that the family then realized, “There was a razor blade inside my baby’s food.”
Alyssa is careful to distinguish what her family knows from what they cannot confirm. “We do not know if she put the razor blade in her mouth,” she says. However, she adds that the fry appeared to have “a slit… just about big enough for that razor blade to have potentially been inside of it,” leading her to believe it may have been cooked that way. That claim has not been independently verified.
The family immediately reported the incident and handed the blade to staff, Alyssa says, but left feeling the response lacked urgency. She had hoped employees would explain how the matter would be investigated, saying, “I wanted report numbers. I wanted to know what they were doing to make sure that this situation does not happen to anyone else in the future.”
She expected a follow-up from IKEA corporate explaining what steps, if any, had been taken after the incident. Instead, Alyssa says, “I have not received a single email, a single phone call. Nothing with the report numbers that I requested.”
Questions about what happens after a customer reports a potential safety concern often extend beyond the initial incident, particularly when they leave without knowing what steps, if any, were taken afterward.
Much of the reaction centered on what could have happened had the child not noticed something was wrong. One commenter, Liana, urged immediate legal action, writing, “Get a lawyer and sue! Do not wait for them to do something.”
One viewer who identified themselves as a local wrote, “This is my local ikea, I am so glad your daughter is okay, I definitely hope they follow up.”
Others focused on the child’s reaction. “Omfg this is actually insane!! I’m so happy she was able to communicate with you and didn’t get hurt,” another comment reads.
Not everyone expressed confidence that Alyssa would receive additional communication. One viewer wrote, “I’m gonna be honest you probably won’t get any follow up. Just speaking from experience.”
Looking back, Alyssa says she wishes she had contacted police at the time, although her biggest concern remains preventing a similar incident from affecting another family. As she puts it, “This could have ended a lot worse.”
Published: Aug 7, 2026 07:27 am